Phil Vettel recommends: Chicago Restaurant Week

January 22nd, 2014

Chicago Restaurant Week is back — bigger and extended.

Running a full 14 days (Friday through Feb. 6), this seventh annual rendition is officially the longest ever. In practice, though, the promotion, in which participating restaurants offer three-course lunches for $22 and/or three- and four-course dinners for $33 or $44, always tends to linger a few extra days, as restaurants keep those deals in force.

To me that’s a good thing. It tells me that the menus are discounted low enough to attract customers, but not so low that it’s a hardship for restaurants to offer them. The fact that there are more than 250 participating restaurants (about the same as last year) tells me that too.

Chicago Restaurant Week is primarily a city event, but there are at least 20 suburban participants, many of them sequels of city-based concepts, including the Morton’s The Steakhouse locations in Northbrook, Schaumburg and Rosemont; McCormick & Schmick’s in Oak Brook and Rosemont; Catch 35 in Naperville; and Farmhouse Tavern in Evanston. But such independents as Quince and Oceanique in Evanston, Atwater’s in Geneva, Carlucci in Downers Grove and Whitney’s Cafe in Oak Lawn are participating as well.